


Monster

by linguamortua



Series: The Life and Times of Dr Bruce Banner [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bruce Banner Feels, Bruce Banner Has Issues, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-16
Updated: 2015-03-16
Packaged: 2018-03-18 03:37:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3554600
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linguamortua/pseuds/linguamortua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wrapped in a kind of asceticism, Bruce manages to maintain his handful of friendships but sacrifices true depth. He cannot, must not, be irrational. He must never show anger. He is not the Monster, and at all times must uphold an exterior that avoids calling his green-skinned nemesis to mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Monster

**Author's Note:**

> You can add me [on Tumblr](http://lingua-mortua.tumblr.com/).

Bruce is aware, looking in the mirror each morning, of how singularly unremarkable he appears. In a kinder parallel universe he might have overcome his rather square face, his already-greying hair, his social reticence; yes, it would be said, Banner  _looked_  ordinary, but did that not highlight the scientific greatness of the man? In this universe, to be remarked upon is instead a consequence of his Monster. It goes without saying that this is not a positive incarnation of him. While Steve Rogers’ superhuman form is the apex of humanity, his own Monster is the antithesis of all that he, Bruce, would choose to be.

In the wake of world events that dragged the Avengers into the spotlight, and him out of obscurity, had come a certain celebrity. This was truly a celebrity in the modern sense, a popularity of magazines and paparazzi, of PR specialists, social media and fan clubs. Fan clubs! Stark liked to keep a Post-It note on his nightstand with the latest subscriber numbers. His fan club is officially endorsed and thus a further Stark project to be bragged about. Steve’s is rabid, female-dominated and a source of intense discomfort to him. Nonetheless, he maintains a schedule of two annual events a year where, as a special treat, hyperventilating teenage girls are favoured with a friendly, one-armed hug and a photograph.

Bruce probably has a fan club, perhaps some unofficial internet gathering, but nobody has ever approached him about it. Why would they? His celebrity rests not upon his science but on his Monster, an almost-unpredictable knot of violence, an ugly thing, a draining, desperate burst of raw anger. He suspects any followers would be aggressively masculine young men, into speed metal and extreme sports and the word _badass_. Could there be anything more alien to him? Anything that could more cruelly spotlight the very part of him that is most shameful? Any greater rupture from the calm mastery of his past life, his life before the Monster?

It had been a good life. He remembers conferences, cups of mediocre coffee cradled during conversations but soon abandoned in favour of poring over presentation notes. He recalls being  _our keynote speaker Dr Bruce Banner; please join me in warmly welcoming him to the 35th annual ASNS conference_. He would speak for an hour, answer questions with quiet, earned authority, offer words of wisdom to stammering graduate students. And then, the pleasure of the collegiate dinner, humming with industry chat from old friends and full of promises.  _Yes, let’s start work on that paper after the summer. Will you be at DPAS in Toronto? Of course, I’d be happy to run a seminar session for your lab students! Shoot me an email, we’ll work something out._  His email these days looks quite different. Results from Stark, automated data dumps, rare, futile invitations from Steve for beer, research mailing lists, occasional misaimed press requests, and, best of all, dry one-liners from Natasha if she’s in town. No old friends, no research collaborations, no chatty familial offerings.

And so worst of all, worse than the losses and the violence and the mediocrity of the man housing the Monster, is the loneliness. Wrapped in a kind of asceticism, he manages to maintain his handful of friendships but sacrifices true depth. He cannot, must not, be irrational. He must never show anger. He is not the Monster, and at all times must uphold an exterior that avoids calling his green-skinned nemesis to mind. He must be Bruce, only and always. A very measured, very specific incarnation of Bruce. A celibate Bruce, as it turns out.

In his teens, there was a small, tight-knit group of friends with Game Boys and AP classes and burgers at the place on the corner. Eventually there was a sweet, brown-haired girl who liked his scruffy curls and his gentle hands, and they spent almost a year seeing movies and doing math assignments together and rolling around in the back of his car in breathless laughter before they went off to college at the opposite ends of the country. College was mostly books and labs but there were girls too, once in a while. A friend would set him up and they’d double-date, and he was able to be charming enough to make them laugh for an evening and snuggle up to him in the dark cinema. Occasionally he’d take a girl home and they’d have quick, messy sex in his narrow bed and fall asleep still half-drunk. In the morning they’d be too-polite and a little dehydrated from last night’s beer, but those girls would kiss him goodbye and flash him a smile when they saw him around campus.

His relative ordinariness was a blessing; he slipped through human interaction with little excitement but also little friction. There was no hurry. He would meet a woman in time, perhaps another scientist. She would be interesting, smart, have her own inner life. They would fit around each other and make love most nights, probably, and it would be good, good like a clean data set or a hot meal in autumn or fresh sheets. There was always a sense of order in Bruce’s projections of his future. Of course there would be a good woman. Of course there would be tenure at a research university. Of course there would be the quiet evenings at home, the friends, the dog, the professional respect, the weekend hiking, the life well lived.

Instead, there was the military, the accident, the tests,  _her_ , the hospital, the experiments, the years of exile, the torment of the change, the Monster colouring his every move, his every waking thought. The deaths, the drinking, the gun in his mouth, the taste of hot metal and the sick realisation that he would never be free. There was the desperate flight to India where, among the slums and the suffering and the dirt there was also a sort of peace. He found a meditative state in the hands-on work and, for a while, was able to push aside his own trauma in the process of healing others.

There were also the girls, the callow Peace Corps girls, the earnest missionary girls, the adventurous backpacker types and gap year try-hards. For the first time, he found that sex could be more immediate than a pleasant diversion or a pair-bonding ritual. Although middle-aged, his stocky muscle and clever fingers, and the barely-repressed trauma that hung over him like a tragic, mysterious cloud, were enough to make these young women want him. He took them, avoiding any talk of his past, rarely giving his surname, picking them up in expat bars and fucking them in the humid darkness of his one-bedroom apartment. By his forties he had learned the trick of breathing through sex, of keeping himself,  _himself_. There was a danger in this freedom.

After the Winter Soldier debacle, he would have thought that his run-of-the-mill dark secrets could barely raise an eyebrow. After Romanov’s tell-all, after Stark’s messy panic attacks, after Loki’s megalomania, Fury’s deception, after everything, who would care about a guy sleeping with a few naive girls? Except Bruce knows that certain things are forgiveable (attempted suicide, violence in the cause of justice) and some are not (ugly self-loathing, fucking nineteen-year-olds on a sagging bed in Kolkata with one hand over their mouths because the walls are thin and the neighbours curious).

One could conjure up images of Gandhi in ministering to the poor of India. There is a certain quiet respect afforded him by the others since his return. Look, look at this broken man, this once-great scientist. Gaze upon his monstrous form and marvel at his self-control. See how he nobly thrusts aside his baser nature, his animal urges. To be the Monster in form, word or deed is unforgivable. And yet, as Bruce runs another formula through his latest program, he thinks about Kolkata and slowly wets his lower lip with his tongue.


End file.
